The Adventure Zone: Bureau of Balance Review

As I’ve gotten older, one thing that I have really become a fan of are podcasts. I listen to quite a few now, but the first one I ever listened to was The Adventure Zone. Travis turned me on to this actual-play DnD podcast and I was hooked from episode one! From the unique characters and their hilarious banter, to the awesome story and mechanics, it’s just a fun and entertaining experience all around. So a couple of years ago when they announced they were turning their campaign into a board game, I was all in. Does the storytelling/dice rolling/cooperative game give the same satisfaction as listening to the McElroy family in the original podcast? Well, Merle has cast Zone of Truth, so keep reading to see what I really think.

The Adventure Zone: Bureau of Balance game, simply referred to as TAZ from here on out, is a cooperative storytelling game in which players take on the roles of adventurers tasked with retrieving powerful relics from conniving villains. Every game, the group of adventurers will be sent on a Mission: dispatched to a certain Location to collect a specific Relic and defeat the Villain at hand. Working together, players will create and weave a unique story that details how they overcome various obstacles, combats, or puzzles, in order to successfully complete their Mission. To setup for a game, place the game board in the center of the table. Each player selects and creates a Character sheet, using one of the available classes: Warrior, Wizard, Rogue, Bard, or Priest. Players also receive their corresponding Action Token and die.

To create the Mission for your game, select one Relic, Villain, and Location card. Take them and their corresponding Challenge decks and set them up accordingly on the game board. Shuffle the deck of Surprise cards, and place one card face-down under the 4th card of each Challenge deck. Throughout the game, these Surprises will be revealed and resolved. Shuffle the deck of Fantasy Kostco cards and place them to the side of the board. Place the Health token on the Health Track at the top of the board, and place the remaining tokens off to the side. Select one player to be the Team Leader, and the game is ready to begin!

Over a series of rounds, players will be taking turns to create a unique and original story as they attempt to overcome Challenges and complete their Mission. To begin a round, the Team Leader will give an introduction and set the story’s scene. The 3 Challenge decks in play (corresponding to a Location, Relic, and Villain) will describe a scene/setting. For example, “You’re battling a swarm of rats….While dodging lightning bolts….And somehow opening the Great Gate.” On your turn, you will select one of the active Challenge cards with which to engage. Let’s say you go with battling a swarm of rats for this turn – you now need to determine your Strength for the Challenge. Your Character Sheet will give you a base Strength score that may potentially be modified by the type of Challenge.

Once you determine your Strength, you get to tell your story by describing how your character will address the Challenge. The other players may choose to spend their Action Token to assist you in engaging the Challenge, thus giving you a bonus to your Strength score. And now it comes down to the dice! Roll the die and add your current Strength score with any applicable modifiers. If your score exceeds the difficulty on the Challenge card, you have successfully overcome the Challenge! The corresponding Challenge card comes into your hand, and can be exchanged for Loot later. Now a new Challenge card is revealed, thus changing the scene. If your total score for a roll does not meet or exceed the Challenge difficulty, you have failed! Failing Challenges loses Health points, and if you get down to 0 Health, you lose the game! Either way, by defeating or failing a Challenge, the round continues on to the next player. Once you collect a certain number of Challenge cards, you may exchange them for a random Fantasy Kostco card, which can be useful tools or weapons for use throughout the game. At a certain point, the Surprise card that was dealt to each Challenge deck is revealed and resolved as described. The game continues in this fashion, with players setting the scene, engaging in Challenges, telling their story, and rolling dice until either the players win or lose. To win the game, players must have defeated all Challenges in 2 of the 3 Challenge decks. Players lose if they allow their Health token to reach 0.

So all in all, how does TAZ come together as a board game? Unfortunately for me, it falls a bit flat. Don’t get me wrong, as a fan of the podcast it’s definitely fun to engage with the neat elements the McElroy’s have created in their campaign. But playing the game just leaves a lot to be desired for me. For starters, you need to have the right group of people with whom to play this game. Yes, there is a dice-rolling element, but the major pull of the game is the storytelling aspect. The players need to feel comfortable working together to create a unique story and dialogue to drive the plot forward. Some people aren’t that comfortable with role-playing in that way, and without that aspect, the gameplay just grinds through pretty monotonously.

As a fan of the podcast, it is fun to see the references to characters, places, items, etc. from the original TAZ story. But can you play this game even though you’ve never listened to The Adventure Zone? Technically, yes you can. But without that background knowledge, I think it might be difficult to really get into the story since you don’t completely understand all the elements. There are some Challenges or items that seem ridiculous without knowing their context within the world of the podcast. And not getting a reference can be frustrating. That being said, even though I’ve listened to the podcast, the gameplay feels a little stale to me. In theory, this game is cool, but the actual execution misses the mark. TAZ is basically an extreme beginner introduction to D&D, but without the best parts. There’s no ‘combat’ in this game, and no opportunities to really role-play with the other players. A scenario is presented, you briefly describe how you deal with it, and then you roll the dice. For me personally, it just doesn’t feel complete.

To touch on components briefly, they are pretty decent! The game comes with pads of sheets for each of the different character options, and they are clear and understandable. The layout of the Challenge cards themselves is a little confusing at first, but the corresponding Mission card tells you how to arrange the deck so that alleviates some of the confusion. My biggest issue is with one major rule that is not even mentioned in the rulebook. Each Challenge has a difficulty number associated with it. And next to that difficulty number, there are sometimes other numbers on the top of the Challenge card. Nowhere in the rulebook does it say what those additional numbers mean or how they are used. It is only explained on the website that these numbers act as modifiers to Challenge difficulty numbers. So just a big whiff on that in the rulebook, and I don’t know why it was overlooked, as it definitely affects the gameplay significantly. The quality of components is nice, but the rulebook could’ve used a bit more editing.

As you can probably guess, although I am a fan of The Adventure Zone podcast, I don’t really care for this board game version. It’s a cool way to feel some nostalgia for the Bureau of Balance campaign, but beyond that it doesn’t really offer anything more. At least in my opinion. After having played it a few times, I don’t see myself really ever pulling it out again. The nostalgia element was fun, but now that I’ve had the chance to play it several times, I just don’t feel the need to play it again. Purple Phoenix Games is a huge fan of the podcast, but unfortunately we can only give TAZ as a board game a 3 / 6.